pickIt‘s 💯 like this book was written for me: a murder mystery set in the Stalinist Soviet Union that leans heavily on the history of the Siege of Leningrad and music history. I was so there for all of it. And many of the grim details were based in fact. Will re-read.
so-soCrime novel set in postwar Leningrad militia investigation. Ended up nudging into the "just too grim and unpleasant" territory for me. But perhaps appropriate given the grim and unpleasant experiences of those left to starve in Leningrad/St Petersburg.
What happened here?
The dead are more trustworthy than the living. They don't inform on you, for a start.
The treasonous nature of the thought unnerved him. What do you have to hide that the MGB needs to know, comrade? Everyone lived with that question burrowing into their minds. Keeping the answer unspoken was the thing that kept you safe. Until the day that Comrade Beria's scientists figured out a way to plant a bug in a man's mind and eavesdrop on his soul.
City of Ghosts | 
